Bella Adams
Few calories, high protein: The Thonon diet promises to lose ten kilograms in just 14 days. But is this weight loss promise even possible, let alone healthy?
Bring on the bikini body: The Thonon diet markets itself with the promise of losing up to 10 kilograms in just two weeks. There’s no question that this won’t be a walk in the park. It will be radical.
An RTL reporter dared the self-experiment and laboriously struggled through the diet. The result: 5 kilos lighter.
At the end of the contribution she recommends to her viewers: “…, but it was worth it and I can really recommend this to everyone, so especially if you want to fit into your bikini just before the end. It’s tough, but it’s worth it. Pull it off!”
And that, unfortunately, is fatal. We’ll explain why the Thonon diet is one of the most dangerous diets and you’d better stay away from it.
What is the Thonon diet?
The Thonon diet is said to have originated in the idyllic French spa town of Thonon-les-Bains. If you now think of delicious cheese, croissants, and café au lait – far from it.
The diet strongly resembles the ketogenic diet and allows a particularly protein-rich diet.
For example, you can go for meat, fish, legumes like chickpeas, tofu, and low-fat cottage cheese, as well as healthy fats like avocado, flax oil, and walnuts. Carbohydrates are prohibited in any form.
But that’s not enough of a challenge: three meals a day are allowed, and the daily calorie limit of 600 to 800 calories must not be exceeded.
And that’s the crux of the matter: 600 calories a day is very little. Just your porridge for breakfast with nuts, flaxseed, and fresh berries is already 400 to 500 calories.
A sample day of the Thonon diet
The day starts only with a black coffee – without milk and sugar. Herbal tea or green tea is also allowed, but also unsweetened.
At noon, you treat yourself to two soft-boiled eggs with blanched spinach. But please do not season with salt, otherwise, there will be unsightly water retention. Or also allowed: grilled steak with tomatoes. How many grams the steak should have is not revealed.
In the evening either nature yogurt with fruit or a little ham with salad may be “geschlemmt”. Everything is very low carb and high protein.
After the Diät, is before the Diet
For those who have successfully struggled and persevered through the two-week diet without losing their minds, the Thonon diet recommends a “stabilization phase” to avoid a possible yo-yo effect.
That is, directly the first week after the diet, are allowed 1200 to 1500 calories per day.
Conclusion and disadvantages of the Thonon diet
Is the Thonon diet really recommended or absolutely radical and even dangerous? Nutritionist Andra Schmidt does not see a single advantage in the crash diet, but rather meaningful disadvantages. Her conclusion: she would definitely advise against the Thonon diet.
- The metabolism suffers from the low-fiber diet – constipation and digestive problems are the result.
- Glucose stores are empty, so the body gets its energy from muscle mass. This means you lose muscle.
- Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are pre-programmed since you cannot comply with the recommendation of the German Nutrition Society (DGE) “200 grams of fruit and 400 grams of vegetables a day”, among other things.
- Sports are definitely not possible in this phase, because your body is too weak. At the same time, it would mean additional stress for your body and increase cortisol production. Cortisol in turn inhibits the release of important growth hormones and makes you feel more appetite.
- Your menstrual cycle can easily shift due to crash dieting, as your body becomes completely undersupplied.
- Social activities such as going out for ice cream, cozy cookouts with friends, barbecues, etc. must be avoided for the time being.
- A diet that does not exclude a possible yoyo effect is not a good diet. A good balanced, healthy change of diet usually does not have a yoyo effect and does not need a “stabilization phase”.
